Another version of travel.

How Our Private Community Agreed to Get Our Road Repaved

We live at the end of a private road that’s not owned by the state of New York. We are responsible for maintaining it and keeping it clear of snow in the winter. We have to pay to have trees removed if they fall down too, or we have to do it ourselves. I have been out there in the summer with neighbors patching potholes on our paved road after a harsh winter. We’ve been saving to get it repaved, and it was time for a company that does road paving in Nassau County NY to come out and do the job.

We had to work out an agreement of how we would pay for it. We all have varying lot sizes along the road, so we decided to pay for the road section based on how much property frontage we owned that bordered the road. Most of the homes have paved driveways along the road too, so anyone that wanted their driveways repaved during the project would pay for it separate as it was not part of the common area of the road.

It is a bit weird how our property agreements work. The road going through is actually on property each individual property owner owns. However, a standing agreement is in place to make it a perpetual right of way over the properties to reach the other properties along the road. There is also a liability contract that goes on for many pages in case someone gets injured along a certain spot in the road. We all pay into an insurance policy to cover that stuff.

Apparently this area was owned by one family and then subdivided into lots for individual homes. The road through was just agreed to with a handshake among the original owners. Now we have contracts and agreements. I’m just glad we are getting a new paved road to our homes. The old one is in bad shape and so pockmarked with pothole repairs that it looks awful.